6. RADIATION ONCOLOGY RESEARCH PROGRAM Mark Dewhirst, D.V.M., Ph.D. and Christopher Willett, M.D., Co-Leaders The overall goal of this program is to emphasize scientific paradigms focused on treatment of local/regional disease, with the ultimate objective of achieving long term control of such tumors, while maintaining normal tissue integrity. The paradigm is being approached two ways: 1) Therapeutic approaches to increase tumor response or reduce normal tissue damage and 2) Development of diagnostic methods to predict outcome or guide therapeutic decisions before or during treatment. The fact that radiation therapy is used as part of therapy for nearly all forms of cancer means that the clinical collaborations are varied and multidisciplinary. Members cross many disciplines, including molecular biology and signal transduction, physiology, angiogenesis, hyperthermia, engineering, drug carrier development, imaging, radiation biology and clinical trial development and conduct. The fact that this program is centered in a clinical department helps to focus efforts toward translational applications of laboratory findings to the clinic. The program has incorporated MR and CT/PET imaging capabilities into future research plans with the acquisition of this hardware within the department. Additionally, several protocols now include opportunities for direct acquisition of tissues and/ or plasma samples that can be used for investigation of genetic factors that influence therapy or normal tissue responses to therapy. Significant improvement has been made in the basic science component of the program, with successful recruitment of molecular biologists and a chemist with expertise in reactive oxygen species biology. A new faculty member has also been recruited to pursue novel translational concepts relating to modulation of normal tissue damage post therapy. The program sponsors several venues for interaction, offered on a bi-weekly to yearly basis to facilitate collaborations within and with other programs. All program members rely on the DCCC shared resources, some rather extensively. Since the last competing renewal, members of this program have published 403 peer reviewed papers; over 90% of which have been directly related to cancer. A high frequency of papers are the result of intraprogrammatic 87 (22%) or interprogrammatic 56 (14%) or combined 28 (7%) interactions. Collectively, this means that 43% of all papers involved collaboration. Approximately 24% of patients who enter the Radiation Therapy Department for therapy are accrued onto research protocols; plans are underway to improve these numbers over the next 5 years.